Of Trojan Horses and Immigration My response to Derb's NRO article on immigration today, in email form:

"We might, for example, have a "probationary" system for resident non-citizens, imposing all sorts of restrictions and requirements on them, government agencies licensed to collect all kinds of information on them. Then, when a person becomes a citizen, the restrictions and requirements vanish, and the gathered information is purged by law from the databases. What would be wrong with that? What, exactly, would be wrong with it? "

Dear Derbyshire, Well, the INS is hopelessly incompetent. I'm not too keen on solving these problems with a massively more powerful INS bureacracy empowered to surveill people's lives. Remember that many non-citizens have family and friends who are citizens...where do you draw the line? Personally, I think the real question is: a) who do we let in? b) why do we need to let in people without regard to their ethnic origin? It's b) that is the real powderkeg. I would much prefer a realistic race/religion/etc. savvy screening procedure to an intrusive and ineffective tracking procedure. Far easier and more efficient to deal with people at a port of entry than for years and years over the course of their lives. An explicitly race conscious policy is a pipe-dream now, of course, but a Canada style points system would do nicely, possibly with minus points for coming from a terrorist nation. (but see below.) Note also that we're dealing with two very different issues with regards to immigration: the large scale low intensity threat of mass Hispanic immigration, and the small scale high intensity threat of islamic fundamentalist immigrants. To some extent it is to the advantage of immigration reform advocates to conflate these issues in order to get traction on the former by preying on the fear of the latter...but I feel that such efforts will be counterproductive in the long run because the solutions to these problems are not identical. There is also the ironic tang of using Trojan Horse tactics in response to the perceived or real Trojan Horse of immigration... A simple skills/IQ filter (implemented by a Canada style system) along with border enforcement will stop the deleterious effects of mass Hispanic immigration. [1] As for Muslim fundamentalist immigration, well, I don't know how easy it will be to deal with that because it's not as immediately seen as a numbers game (unlike it is in Europe, say). Disallowing citizenship for immigrants from terror sponsoring nations would deprive of us many very competent, loyal, and secular Iranian engineers - who are of the same caliber as their Indian, Chinese, or Eastern European counterparts, and are likewise fleeing oppressive and/or corrupt regimes to pursue happiness in the land of the free. There aren't easy solutions to this, beyond increased scrutiny for potential terror-sympathizing immigrants. I'd prefer that sort of thing to be tacitly handled by the CIA rather than overtly through the INS... [1] A quick explanation of my position on immigration: if Hispanic immigration did not result in externalities for which employers are not liable, then I'd be for it. The problem is that employers get cheap labor, but do not bear the full costs of immigration. The public is saddled with the bill for welfare, social services, crime, second language translation, affirmative action, etcetera. This is a classic case of externality created market failure - and provides a theoretical basis for government regulation. Note also that I'd be all for (say) mass Chinese immigration, because Northeast Asians don't bring such problems with them.